If she didn't get on the bus, Yun Xi would have to face the desolate street filled with fog and the Meili Hospital across the street. But if she got on the bus... After hesitating for a moment, Yun Xi looked up at the bus driver and asked tentatively, "Master, is this the bus back to the city center?" "Yes." The bus driver nodded while holding the steering wheel, without looking at Yun Xi. Yun Xi swallowed hard. "Are you getting on?" The bus driver urged again and glanced at Yun Xi, seeming a bit impatient as if he had been waiting for a while. Yun Xi gritted her teeth and said, "Yes!" At least this driver seemed like a normal person. Moreover... Perhaps this newly opened bus route hadn't been properly arranged yet, so the bus company had arranged some old models to fill in temporarily on this route? Yun Xi comforted herself, or rather hypnotized herself, and got on the bus. But soon she encountered a new problem: She couldn't use her electronic bus card on her mobile phone, and she didn't have any cash on her either. "Oh! There's no signal here..." Yun Xi was a bit worried. "It's okay. Go sit at the back first." The driver said as he closed the door and started the bus. "Oh, okay. Then I'll try again later. Thank you!" Yun Xi thanked him repeatedly, thinking that this driver was quite nice and there should be no problem with this trip. Most of her worries were gone. There was no one else on the bus. Yun Xi walked to the back near the rear door, found a seat and sat down, then took out her mobile phone and kept trying to get a signal. But as she was trying, Yun Xi suddenly felt that something was wrong! It was... the isolation belt outside the window. Yun Xi remembered that on her way here, the main street connecting the new district and the city center had very good greenery. Even the isolation belt in the middle of the road was made into a landscape with green lawns, flowers and shrubs. Yun Xi thought it was really beautiful at that time. But now, on the main road outside the window, there was only a row of simple iron fences, monotonously repeating as they passed by backwards. The road was wide and straight, but it seemed that only her bus was driving on it. The street lights were still not on, and only the lights of the bus shone on the surrounding fog. At this time, the visibility was even lower. The greenery on both sides of the road and the buildings a little further away had all become irregular black shadows in the fog. These black shadows kept passing by outside the window, as if some dark creatures were wriggling along with the bus on both sides. Yun Xi swallowed hard and looked up. She saw that the display screen in front of the bus showed the time: Seven forty-five. Yun Xi looked down at her mobile phone, and it was the same time. She had been on the bus for over an hour. Under normal circumstances, the bus should have reached the city center by now. But at this time, outside the window, there were still only fences, thick fog and the black shadows behind the fog. Yun Xi knew that this bus probably couldn't take her back to school. She pursed her dry and cracked lips, thought for a while, and then gathered her courage to walk to the front of the bus to ask the driver, who might still be a normal person: "Master, this doesn't seem to be the way back to the city center, right?" This time, the driver didn't answer. Yun Xi paused for a moment and then stiffly looked up at the rearview mirror in the front of the bus. In the rearview mirror, the driver was also looking straight at her. Against the backdrop of the headlights of the bus, the driver's face looked abnormally pale. At the moment when their eyes met, the corner of the driver's mouth curved into a stiff arc, and in a hoarse voice, he slowly told Yun Xi: "Almost, there." Yun Xi's hand trembled. She immediately looked away, not daring to ask where they were going. She silently went back to the rear of the bus and found a seat by the window. There was a small hammer hanging beside the window. It was the safety hammer on the bus, which was used by passengers to break the window in case of an accident. When Yun Xi sat down holding the window frame, she took the small hammer down. Then she took out her mobile phone again. There was still no signal on the phone, but this time, Yun Xi directly dialed 110. Although she wasn't sure about the specific principle, Yun Xi knew that under normal circumstances, even in places without a signal, emergency calls could still be made. But after waiting for a while, the dialing for the alarm call was automatically hung up. Yun Xi tried it twice in a row, and it was the same every time. Just when she still wanted to try a few more times, an idea suddenly hit her: [No.] If in this spooky place, the alarm call was really connected, but the person on the other end wasn't a police officer... ... Then what would she do?! Yun Xi thought that if this really happened, she would probably break down on the spot. So she finally gave up and put away her mobile phone. Yun Xi looked out of the window of the bus again. The speed of the bus was still not fast. Beside the window frame, there were simple pictures and a few lines of words describing the emergency use method of the safety hammer. Yun Xi desperately tried to recall in her mind the methods and precautions for using the safety hammer on the bus that she had seen on TV. At this time, the temperature inside the bus suddenly dropped sharply. Yun Xi's breath had started to form mist. And the seats and handrails around were quickly becoming old, rusty, mottled and decayed... Yun Xi felt that if she hesitated any longer, she would lose the chance to get off the bus! She quickly stood up, clenched the small hammer tightly, and was just about to smash the window. But at this time, with a sharp "squeak", the bus slowly stopped. Yun Xi pursed her lips and quietly put the hammer behind her back. With her hands behind her back, she asked tentatively: "Is something wrong, Master?" "Arrived, at, the, stop." The bus driver answered in a hoarse and slow voice. "Arrived... at which stop?" Yun Xi's hand holding the hammer behind her back was trembling. "The, final, stop." With these words, the rear door of the bus opened with a creaking sound. An indescribable smell of decay had already started to appear inside the bus. Yun Xi's eyes moved to the rearview mirror again. On the pale face of the bus driver in the mirror, there was already a frozen smile, exactly the same as that of the hospital security guard. And the smell of decay in the bus seemed to be coming from him! Yun Xi couldn't bear it for a second! She rushed out of the door two steps before she broke down and could only scream unconsciously. Almost at the same time as she stepped on the ground, the sounds of "click, click, click, click" started to ring out one after another around her. Yun Xi's mind went blank! After a while, she slowly realized that it was the street lights on the street that were turning on one after another. The fog around was very thick, and the light of the street lights couldn't penetrate it completely. But the appearance of the lights still brought Yun Xi a lot of a sense of security and, courage. "Whew—" Yun Xi exhaled a white breath, rubbed her hands, and walked along the place where two columns of lights were lit up in front, wanting to see where this unlucky bus had taken her. Through the fog, the buildings in front gradually became clear, but Yun Xi's steps became slower and slower. The long white jade relief fence emerged from the fog. In front of the tall and overlapping gate, on the pale white marble nameplate stone, four familiar blood-red characters were written: Meili Hospital.